


Smoke

by imera



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, First Meetings, Friendship, Underage Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-27
Updated: 2017-03-27
Packaged: 2018-10-11 06:30:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10457550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imera/pseuds/imera
Summary: They met by chance, but maybe, just maybe, she was the one.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the get lucky fest, I had fun exploring the young characters, it certainly makes me want to write them again.

Smoke left his lips and vanished into the cool night air as Lucius stood alone on the dark balcony. It was a bad habit, smoking, but teenagers were almost expected to do the opposite of what their parents wanted and make bad choices.

Maybe if his mother discovered his bad habit and scolded him he would have stopped smoking, but she hadn’t, instead she died and all he was left with was an anger over the fact that she was gone. He respected his father, but he loved his mother.

Laughter reached him and he was brought back to his reality, the debutante ball.

He was thirteen when he attended the first debutante ball. At that age he wasn’t expected to find a partner, but that didn’t prevent his mother from hoping he would find a perfect Pure Blooded witch to marry. He was forced to go every year, no matter if he felt ill or had other plans. He always protested, but his mother wouldn’t let him get away, and his father didn’t care.

When his father learned that he would attend the ball even though his mother was dead he was surprised. Lucius still detested the ball, but attending it, even if it was for the last time, made him feel slightly closer to his mother.

The night the air felt nice against his neck, which had been suffocating in the stiff dress robes for hours before he escaped the ball and undid the buttons. It’s the last time, he told himself, knowing that as soon as he started his apprenticeship he would stop attending most things he was forced to attend growing up.

Lifting the lit cigarette to his lips he inhaled deeply before releasing another cloud of smoke around him, smiling at the thought of being scolded by any of the people in charge of the ball. He wondered what they would do as he was of age, and didn’t plan to ever attend another debutante ball again.

Lucius was halfway done with his cigarette when the silence atmosphere was interrupted by a crying girl running to the banister. She still hadn’t noticed him because he was standing in the darker part of the balcony, and was also closer to the building than she was.

It was dark and she was standing too far away for him to recognise her, not that he was certain he would know who she was if he could see her face. At such balls he barely knew half the people attending, but strangely enough everyone else seemed to know who he was, which was probably because he had both money and name, making him a perfect catch for those young single girls.

Not wanting her to suddenly discover him and think he was a creep he cleared his voice, smiling slightly as she was startled.

Even though he made her aware of his presence he wasn’t certain what to say, normally all he did was introduce himself and pretend to be interested in whatever tedious theme the other party wanted to discuss, he rarely needed to comfort someone.

“I’m sorry,” she apologised and was on her way back to the ball.

“Don’t go on my account, I just didn’t want you to discover me and think I’m stalking you or something like that.” She stopped, looked at the ball and turned back to the edge of the balcony.

He continued to smoke while trying to look at the opposite direction, wanting to give her as much privacy as possible. That was when she surprised him by talking. “You must think I’m a fool, crying over a boy.”

“I wasn’t aware of the reason for your tears,” he admitted, even though he could have guessed. The girl continued to look at the dark garden below. “Did someone say something rude to you?” He hated attending balls, but he wasn’t heartless, especially as the girl hadn’t thrown herself at him.

“Yes,” she answered quickly. “Well, not directly at me.”

“Did he mention you to someone else?”

“No.” Lucius was confused, but chose not to tell her as he didn’t want to sound silly . “He was always nice towards me, I thought he really liked me, but tonight he told my parents he was interested in my sister.”

“Ah,” Lucius answered. “And he has now broken your heart.”

She nodded. “He never said that he wanted to marry me, but he did kiss me once, and he kept telling me things that sounded as if he was interested,” the girl admitted.

Like most boys in his circle he was a heartbreaker, but unlike some he didn’t like to give girls false hope. Every girl that showed any interest in him was told he wasn’t looking for a future wife. He was no virgin, but every witch he’d been with knew there was little chance of things evolving into more than a short fling. Most seemed to accept it and move on to someone who might be a better match, and some even liked to have a little fun before finding their partner.

“But you never did anything else with him?”

“No,” she laughed.

Lucius drew in another deep breath of his cigarette, watching the girl as her eyes moved from her hands, to the garden, and then to him.

“Why are you here?” she asked casually.

“Because,” he said, releasing the smoke he still held, “I regret attending the ball.”

“Were you forced to come?”

“Normally yes, but not this year.” Lucius answered as he stumped his cigarette on the banister before throwing it off the balcony.

“Then why did you come?”

Lucius wasn’t sure why, he kept telling himself it was to honor his mother, but there were other ways he could do that which didn’t involve him torturing himself through a night of girls looking for a husband.

He shrugged, but then remembered he was standing in the darkness so she might not see his response. “I don’t know.”

When the silence grew between them again Lucius wondered if he should excuse himself and return to the ball, or maybe even leave if he was lucky and got away from the clutches of the single ladies.

“Can I have a cigarette?” the witch suddenly asked. Lucius was slightly surprised as girls usually thought smoking was a nasty habit.

“Are you sure?”

“No, but I don’t care any longer.” Lucius still didn’t think it wise but instead of rejecting her he pulled out the small silver box and offered her one of the cigarettes. The girl thanked him as she pulled a cigarette out of his box, smiling softly as she asked for fire. Lucius wasn’t certain if it was a trick to see if he was easily fooled, it certainly seemed like something someone would do to catch his attention.

As soon as she sucked on the cigarette he knew it wasn’t a game, she did know how to smoke.

“Thank you,” she said and turned towards the edge of the balcony.

Standing as close to her he recognised her as Bellatrix's younger sister. At first he struggled to remember her name, as she wasn’t as memorable as her older sister, but eventually the name came to him and he felt slightly less worried about her trying to capture him for his money or name as she had both.

“I can’t believe I fell for him,” she confessed, still ignoring Lucius as she continued smoking. He watched her as clouds left her lips, finding it strangely hypnotic.

Narcissa wasn’t ugly, but neither was she a beauty, something he knew shouldn't matter when picking a wife, not that he planned to marry her.

Watching her he wondered why he’d never paid any attention to her before. The answer was quite simple, Bellatrix. The oldest Black sister was the one receiving most attention, something he knew well enough having spent seven years with her at Hogwarts. He knew she had sisters, but she rarely spoke of them, it was only by coincidence a few years earlier that he was made aware of Narcissa being Bellatrix’s sister, something he found hard to believe as they looked as different as day and night.

“Mother will be happy that at least one of her daughters managed to marry well. I guess I should be happy he’s not interested in me, to be honest he isn’t really my type.”

“Oh, what type is that?”

She thought a little, then smiled before answering. “The crazy type.”

Lucius knew of a few that fit that bill, but there was only two who probably knew both the Black sisters. “Is it one of the Lestrange brothers?” he asked.

“Rodolphus,” she answered without looking at him. “And to think I spent hours making sure I looked good for him,” she said and looked at her dress.

Lucius hadn’t really paid attention to her dress, mostly because it was too dark to see much, but also because he wasn’t that interested in clothes. It was important to look good, but spending hours preparing wasn’t something he could identify with.

He watched her as she pulled off her gloves before shocking him by throwing them off the balcony, laughing. “There, now I’m done with him,” she said rather proud of herself.

“Good, you don’t need someone who uses you like that.”

“I don’t know why I hadn’t seen it before, it wasn’t as if he paid that much attention to me. I even caught him with Bella once, and convinced myself they were telling the truth when they said they sat as close because they were working on a project together.” She shook her head as she probably thought of how foolish she’d been.

Lucius wasn’t certain what to say, he wasn’t used to comforting girls, and he was especially not used to girls who didn’t really need comforting. “At least you know now,” he said, wondering if he should add anything else.

“Yes, at least I know now.”

She kept staring into the darkness, which he found fascinating.

Normally he was desperate to get away from the girls, fearing they would think that him talking to them meant he was interested in more than a simple conversation. Maybe Narcissa was like the rest of them, not that Lucius believed it. For the first time in a long while he wondered if he’d met a girl who didn’t mind being just friends.

He wanted to say something else, but the silence was interrupted by a third person. 

“Narcissa,” an older woman hissed. Lucius noticed how Narcissa almost casually threw the half finished cigarette off the balcony before quickly releasing the last smoke she held. Turning around she smiled innocently.

“Mother,” she said calmly.

“Are you smoking?” Mrs Black asked, looking both shocked and angry.

“No,” Narcissa answered. Lucius was impressed by the innocent look she gave her mother, as well as the soft tone, but sadly her mother didn’t fall for it.

The older woman looked at Lucius for a moment before continuing scolding her daughter. “Don’t lie to me.”

“It was I,” Lucius admitted. Technically it wasn’t a lie, but neither was it the whole truth. “I was smoking, your daughter is innocent.” Lucius could see the shock on both their faces and felt slightly proud for managing to surprise them both.

“You think this is funny? Smoking around my daughter, what kind of man does that to an easily impressioned girl?” Lucius was tempted to comment on the fact that she accused her own daughter of smoking barely a minute earlier, but chose not to do so as he didn’t want her more emotional than she already was. “Such a bad role model for the younger students, mark my words Mr Malfoy, your mother will hear about this.”

Suddenly the older woman realised what she’d said and stopped talking, looking as if she’d been hexed. It was sad that his mother had died but he liked even less the way people tried to pretend it hadn’t happened, or that she had never existed in the first place.

“I mean,” Mrs Black began, uncertain of what to say next.

“Yes, my mother is dead,” Lucius finished, feeling tired of the way people tried to stay away from the topic.

“Well, I can talk to your father, but I’ll let it slide this time, just don’t let me catch you with another of those nasty things again.” She then grabbed her daughter’s hand and pulled her back through the door.

Before they disappeared completely he could see Narcissa mouthing Thank you, which made him feel good about what he just did.

As he stood alone he wondered what to do next, not about the ball, but about Narcissa. She was clearly not as crazy as some of the other girls, but maybe she simply hid it better than they did. Whatever his decision was she still had a year left of school, meaning he had a year where he could get to know her better.

There was a chance she wasn’t the one for him, but maybe, just maybe, she was.


End file.
